Stranger Souls

by Jak Koke

  Roxborough stood up and surveyed his body. It was a form he was used to even though it had been many years since he'd been inside it. A large belly protruded over his waist, his naked flesh a pasty white, covered only by a threadbare rug of black hair follicles. His feet and bones ached dully from the exertion of standing up. He was in his old body.

  "Hello, Rox," came a voice he recognized. A voice that belonged to a woman who had plagued him on and off in the Matrix since the Crash of '29.

  He turned to look at her—a medium-height human woman leaning her shoulder against the scratched plexiglass of an old-style phone booth. Her blonde hair was cropped at the shoulder. Her eyes were the blue color of oceans; Roxborough could almost see the sparkle of sun off the water when he looked at them. She wore black jeans and a white cotton halter, and a cigarette rested between the fingers of her right hand, smoke from its tip curling up along her arm.

  "Taking up smoking, Alice?" Roxborough said.

  "Yes," she said, taking an exaggerated drag from her cigarette. "After all, it can't kill me."

  Roxborough laughed. "Very humorous," he said. "So where am I?"

  "Welcome to Wonderland," Alice said. "But you can call it Hell."

  "Whatever do you mean?"

  "I mean that I've finally given you your wish," she said. "A real body."

  "How did you—" Roxborough stopped as a man stepped up next to Alice, coming from behind the phone booth. The man was tall and well-muscled, but his movements were jerky and not quite natural, as though this was a simulacrum instead of a real person. It was Ryan Mercury.

  "Hello, Tommy," Ryan said, calling Roxborough by the name Father had used. "I gave Alice the access codes to get into your system." Ryan tapped his forefinger against his temple. "Many of your memories are in here," he said.

  Roxborough stared at Alice. "What have you done?"

  "I've trapped your consciousness," she said. "Quite simple once Ryan gave me the codes I needed. I've also reconfigured your own system so that you'll never be able to get back inside. Escape is quite impossible, I'm afraid."

  "But why?"

  Alice took a final drag on her cigarette and flicked it into the street. "I want to torture you," she said simply. "I want you to know what I went through after the Crash. You know what it feels like to be a prisoner, but do you understand what it's like to be thrust into a world completely out of your control? Where you don't know the rules? Where the most innocuous things can kill you?"

  "It wasn't my fault, Alice," Roxborough said. "It was merely bad luck that you were in my system when the Crash virus flatlined you."

  "I'm still gathering evidence. Ryan can't remember the specifics of your involvement with the Crash, but suffice it to say that I think you're full of drek."

  "I did not cause the Crash."

  Alice shrugged and lit another cigarette. "Time and evidence will judge you," she said. "For now, I've created a new home for you, a special little ultraviolet space. It's part of Wonderland City, but the rules of the reality are very different. Consider it enforced poetic justice."

  Roxborough turned to face Ryan. How did this human escape from both Meyer's ritual and Darke's hit team? "How can you participate in this?" he said. "You know my past. Haven't I already suffered enough?"

  Ryan shook his head. "I helped her because it's the only way I can truly beat you. I almost became you, and that scares me. Even now, your past is part of me, and I've accepted what you did as part of my history. It's made me a more complete person, but I've decided not to act like you. I'm better than you."

  Ryan said this last with his finger pointing directly at Roxborough's chest. "You showed me that I have choices," he went on. "But ultimately, I made my own choice, and it wasn't the one you would have made. I resisted the evil voice."

  In the following silence, Roxborough began to clap his hands together, applauding. He forced a laugh. "Nice speech, drekhead," he said. "Sentimental crap, but well stated."

  "Alice's plan for you might just change your mind," Ryan said.

  "Doubtful," Roxborough said.

  Alice took another of her deep drags and exhaled smoke with her words. "In a way," she said, a twisted smile on her face, "this is your dream come true. You get what you've always wanted—a 'real' body."

  "I suppose you want me to say thank you."

  "No."

  "Then what?"

  "You'll soon find out," she said.

  Then Alice and Ryan were gone, and Roxborough was standing on a lawn of brilliant green in an English garden. A quiet pond sparkled in the morning light in front of him, and as he turned to look around, a large white rabbit wearing a waistcoat ran by him saying, "Oh dear! I shall be too late!" The rabbit took an old-style watch from its waistcoat pocket and glanced at the time, then jumped under a hedge.

  Oh no! Roxborough thought. I don't think I'm going to like this at all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Stranger Souls, Book One of The Dragon Heart Trilogy, is Jak Koke's second Shadowrun® novel. His first, Dead Air, was published by Roc Books in mid-1996. His third novel, Liferock, will be published by FASA Corporation as part of its Earthdawn® series in October 1996.

  Koke has also sold numerous short stories to AMAZING STORIES and PULPHOUSE: A FICTION MAGAZINE, and has contributed to several anthologies such as Rat Tales by Pulphouse, Young Blood by Zebra, and Talisman, an Earthdawn® anthology.

  Koke invites you to visit his webpage at http://www.sapermedia.com/koke/. You can also send him comments about this and any of his Shadowrun® books care of FASA Corporation.

  He and his wife Seana Davidson, a marine microbiologist, live in California with their four-year-old daughter, Michaela.

  MEMO

  FROM: JANE-IN-THE-BOX

  TO: NADJA DAVIAR

  DATE: 20 AUGUST 2057

  RE: THE LEGEND OF THAYLA

  Dunkelzahn's Institute of Magical Research just unearthed this document. Thought you'd be interested. Text follows:

  Ages ago, before written memory began, lived a queen of great beauty and even greater heart. Thayla reigned over a rich green valley nestled between two mountain ranges that rose like spikes into the heavens. Under her rule, the land she loved prospered, and her people lived their days in joy.

  Each morning Thayla greeted the rising sun with a Song. She sang in a voice as clear as the air and as bright as the great burning orb itself. Nothing foul or dark could prosper in her land, for her voice was too pure for such abominations to bear.

  One night an army of dark creatures made to enter the valley, seeking to overrun the prosperous land and corrupt it with their vile presence. Thayla rose that morning as she always did, and upon seeing the black army, sang. Her voice filled the valley with power and hope.

  The evil horde, shown the depravity of their existence by her voice, had no choice but to flee. And as they did—running and flying with wild abandon for refuge beyond the valley—one black soldier slowed and, for the briefest of moments, listened to Thayla's Song.

  Days passed, and the terrible army remained beyond the valley, fearful of the Song. Finally, driven by their dark masters, they surged forward again. And again Thayla sang.

  As before the foul creatures fell back blindly, unable to stand even a few pure notes of her voice. But again the lone, tall warrior with hair and eyes of dark fire lingered and listened, if only for a few moments, before fleeing the valley.

  The next time the creatures approached Thayla's domain, less of the army came. The rest were unable to marshal the will needed to enter the valley. But again, the lone dark soldier fell back last, so that he could hear her Song.

  Finally, not one of the black army would come. Not even the terrible threats of their vile masters could push them forward. But still a single warrior in ebony and red armor would slip into the valley before each dawn and listen, and after a time, watch as well.

  The black figure advanced to where he could see Thayla standing high upon the terraces of the g
reat sprawling city that surrounded her palace. And he would watch her every morning as she rose and greeted the new day with the Song. And as he listened, blood flowed from his ears and his skin blistered from the powerful purity of her voice, but he would not turn aside. He would not flee from her Song. And so he stood, listened, and watched.

  Then one night, the dark warrior slipped into the city as Thayla slept. He crept into her citadel, sat at the foot of her bed and watched her.

  When she woke and found him there, she called for her guards, but none were strong enough to move the dark warrior. She called her sorcerers, but none were wise enough to banish him. She sang to drive him away, but though his body and spirit were wracked with pain, he stood strong and firm, enraptured by her beauty.

  Unable to drive him away, the great Queen Thayla decided to ignore him. Though he stood at her side, she ate without speaking to him. Though he ran alongside as she took her horses out for exercise, she did not look at him. And though he stood silently nearby as she slept, she did not acknowledge his presence.

  Each morning she would rise and greet the sun, singing loud and strong so that the dark army waiting beyond the valley could not enter. And each morning he stood beside her and cried tears of blood and fire at the pain and joy her voice gave him.

  And so this went on for some time. Thayla slept, sang, and performed her royal duties. But the black warrior stayed at her side, and slowly the land began to darken from his presence. The animals of the field sickened, as did the people. The crops would not grow, and dark and terrible clouds filled the sky over the valley.

  Thayla knew the black soldier was the cause of ail these things, and so she asked him to leave. He did not even answer her. She tried to trick him into leaving, but he would not be fooled. Then she tried to force him away, but he could not be broken. Finally, she begged him to leave.

  "But I do not wish to leave," he replied. These were the first words he had ever spoken to her, and his voice was like dried leaves blown on the autumn wind. "Your beauty is like none I have ever seen."

  "But you cannot stay," she told him. "Your presence is destroying my land and my people."

  "I care not for your land or its people," the warrior told her. "I care only for you."

  Faced with his determination, Thayla wept. Slowly her people died. Finally, she called her greatest advisors together and told them what they must do.

  "As you know, the presence of the dark warrior is destroying our land and our people," she said. "However, he will not leave my side. We cannot make him leave, and so I must leave the land and take him with me."

  Her advisors wailed at her words. "But you cannot! It is only your voice that holds the black army at bay! If you leave, we will certainly die!"

  Thayla nodded, for she knew this to be true, but said, "I will leave, but my voice will remain." And with that she charged her most powerful sorcerers with the task of placing her voice in a songbird that would great the rising sun each morning as she had.

  They searched the land and found the finest songbird of all. And as the sun rose, they performed the ritual. When the first light appeared the next morn, the bird sang with Thayla's Voice, and the Song held the dark army at bay.

  The sorcerers rejoiced at this, but when they turned to congratulate Thayla, she and her dark shadow had gone. They searched the land but could find neither of them.

  But the Songbird rose each morning. And with a voice as pure as the clear air itself, it sang the Song, and the black army trembled in its tracks, unable to enter the valley.